The Spring Session of Writers’ Circle TO is underway. One summer 2013 session is planned.
If you’re interested, shoot thom an email or sign up below, asap.
CHECK THIS OUT!
We’re developing a collaboration where screenwriters can move their scenes further by shooting them with other learners and professional filmmakers and actors. Very exciting. Stay tuned.
Note: Sign up via the confidential email list below.
Location: Downtown Toronto Duration: 8 weeks. 3 hours
Class-size: very limited
Cost: $320.
Luckily, writing is a craft and art that can be learned by doing it. But many writers lack an on-going focused environment in which to take their work to the next level. Led by writer/performer/educator thom vernon, the Writers’ Circle TO is a unique and safe workshop environment designed to be accessible to creative writers: screenwriters, play writers, fiction writers, essayists and others (1-person shows, memoirists, etc.). Participation is by invitation only.
Check out what people have said about thom’s classes and the drop-down menu above to get a taste of some of the topics we work on in the Circle. In the winter we’ll be taking on Backstory, Subtext, Double-entendre, ethnicities, geographies and maybe even a little quantum physics.
During each three-hour session, a presentation will be made on one of the key elements of the craft of writing. These include Story, Plot, Logic, Character, Setting, Rhythm, Dialogue and Revision amongst others. These elements will be modeled and then practiced in our sessions.
Our goal is to unleash the author in each writer. Good writers‘author’, according to Barthes, while others transcribe, or write. Authoring implies an authenticity, an amplification of meaning, that is not found in transcription. Readers of creative writing want unique experiences which only come when their emotions engage with our authoring. These sessions will teach you the tools and techniques to achieve ‘authoring’. They will leave writers refreshed, inspired and eager to enter their work.
In each session, we will critically discuss one or two participant manuscripts.
thom will offer feedback in several ways: 1-1 sessions, .pdf-embedded, screencasts. While no participant is required to submit work for feedback, the Writers’ Circle TO is a rare opportunity to engage with a professional writer and a select community of peers.
Location: Downtown Toronto, TBD
Duration: 8 weeks. 3 hours per session.
Reserve your place in the next 2013 session ASAP by leaving a comment below and signing up for our private email list.
Class-size: very limited
Cost: $320. Enrolment is required for entire session via email transfer, cash or cheque.
To submit for participation, please ‘Speak Your Mind’ below or email thom@thomvernon.com. Leave your contact information, the genre that you’re working in and any questions or concerns you may have. Thanks!
Writing tips and links are tweeted below. Please follow & RT.
I would love to be a part of this fall’s writer’s group! Count me in. Saturdays work best for me, but am open to a week night.
Thanks Thom!
Looking forward to seeing you and maybe some other familiar screenwriters soon!
I will have scenes that I will workshop ready dependent on the start date.
Yeah you know I’m totally in, down, ready, willing, able, hungry, excited, amped…
Oh thom! I would LOVE to participate in this, but I have already signed up for Screenwriting 2 which starts next week. That’s all my time can handle right now.
If you were planning on holding a winter/spring session, I would be more than game.
Or the next one … After all, Madeleine and Blake have yet to reach the 90 page mark.
Thanks for the invite.
Cheers,
Susan
Thom,
I am also interested in maybe doing this after the 1st of the year as I will be in the Second City Comedy Writing Course until mid December. Keep me informed.
Best wishes,
Joe Nolan
Sounds great. I may have to miss a couple of sessions due to work commitments but count me in.
Excellent, Susan. The idea is to have them on-going with enrolments in 8 week chunks. So, we’ll do this session and then pick up with another in the New Year. Enjoy SCW 2!
When would the first session begin?
Hi M,
I’m thinking 3rd or 4th week of Oct. Will turn on space availability. Would like to get the ball rolling at the latest by 1st week of Nov. I’m thinking a weeknight evening 6-9ish (Wed, Thurs or Fri).
Hey thom,
I’m looking forward to attending this course. I would need to know as soon as possible so I could adjust my work schedule around the course.
Hi Doronne, I’m glad you’re on board. We’re looking to start either the last Sunday of Oct (28th) or the first Sunday of Nov. (4th). Finalizing the space. It seems Sun, late afternoon (4-7ish) would be ideal for everyone. Nice to hear from you.
I am so knocked out by the integration of feedback the writers in the Writers’ Circle TO are making. I wish I could share their work with you, but just know that real progress we can see on the page is happening here. Kudos to the writers and their hard work.
Hello Thom,
If I may ask, what sets your screenwriting course apart from, say, a university level course? Or other screenwriting courses? I’m keen to hop on board, but would love to know what set’s you ahead of the rest.
Can’t wait to hear from you. I am excited to join a screenwriting group!
~Jonathan
What a great question—and thoughtful.
There are a number of things that characterize working with me. The ‘university level’ thing is a dicey way to evaluate. Having graduate degrees in screenwriting & fiction from USC, I’m not sure I would replicate the workshops I took there. That said, there was a ferocity and rigourousness with a gentle hand that I take from Cubby Selby (Last Exit to Brooklyn, Req for Dream, etc.). Every writer is where they are and offers something no one else can to our work.That’s not just a belief, it is my experience. My intent is to equip them with more skills and concepts and techniques to mine their particular voice and vision. And, any of my students over the years will tell you—those that engage move their work along.
Everyone in the class has an introductory knowledge of things like format, story, character, dialogue, setting, etc. The Writers’ Circle TO environment lets us go deeper into each of these and other topics. What we do in class is in direct response to the challenges faced by the writers in the room. The class is very practical. We go into depth around things like events (diff than plot), present circumstances, connection v. conflict, recognition, imitation, repetition and so on. The Viewpoints are a key part of my work as well.
For instance, yesterday we took on Action Description. While we noted the technical parts of it (length, what it’s for, etc.), we took on problem of how to write it. While we’re always concerned with the idea, it comes down to getting it on the page. Our main concern. This ‘how’ means word choice, rhythm, momentum and a number of other pieces. If action description directs our eye, mind and spirit in the right way, it then propels the story. If not, it becomes information. This is something along the lines of writing v. authoring. We strive for authoring. Yesterday, we did some exercises, we looked at examples; the writers applied the concepts to their own pages.
Everything we do as writers (in any genre) is to allow a reader to enter an imaginative space and have their own authentic experience. My pedagogy is rooted in the principles of ‘trace’ and ‘connection’ on a skeleton of Review, Introduce, Model, Practice, Apply and Evaluate.
It’s funny you should email. Here’s an exchange from a student earlier this evening:
You said something in class yesterday that cracked something open for me if I interpreted it correctly that is.
Good.
It was something along the lines of “the things characters learn in each scene is the poetry/rhyme of the story. ”
Along those lines, yes. Poetry and rhyme is one means by which audiences/readers will stick around for learnings. But the learnings have to happen. We read 170 pp Tarantino scripts b/c they’re so darn fun.
I took this to mean that the learning itself are the emotional bread crumbs that pull us along with the story. Our connection to the character is through the discoveries they make.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
I have this weird way of looking at my craft in kind of a mathematical way and have felt that some big chunk has been missing for me and this kind of feels like a big piece to the puzzle for me.
YAHOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Seriously, if you take just one thing from our work together, this has got to be in the running.
I’ve been looking at my scene we shared yesterday for a long while knowing that not all of the characters in the scene learn something. You bringing this exact issue that I have been dodging was a great call.
I have intuition to thank for that.
Every character has to learn something in the scene not just the audience and the main character.
Every character. That doesn’t mean we have to see every single learning, that’s where craft also enters, but the learning happens nonetheless. And, let’s go one step further—how do we know a character’s learned or recognized something? How might you show that on the page (hint: Present circumstances)?
Secondary characters are not automatons or tools to help tell the story of the main character. Got it.
That’s right, the more we can allow every person in our stories the dignity of their lives the more we see that we just happen to be seeing more or less of those lives. They don’t know they’re in a movie. They’re the star of their movie. And rightly so.
Thank you for the gem of wisdom, it’s trickling in a little at a time and its working. Thank you thank you thank you.
let me know if I can shed more light,